"Noah" opens solidly in Japan, where religion is rarely a controversial issue.

The animated Disney film has now taken $227 million in Japan, while Darren Aronofsky's biblical epic bowed with a solid $2.5 million weekend.

TOKYO—Noah bowed in second place with $2.5 million (￥255 million yen) from 200,000 admissions at 361 screens. Frozen continued its record-breaking run, racking up another $3.86 million (￥393 million yen) from another 305,000 tickets on Saturday and Sunday.

Frozen's total at the Japanese box office has now reached $227 million (￥23.1 billion) from 18.2 million tickets sold, though its figures have finally started to show significant falls over the last two weeks. While some of that can be explained by torrential rain last week and the World Cup this weekend, Frozen appears to have finally reached the beginning of the end of its run in Japan.

Noah's solid $2.5 million will have brought some good news to Paramount, though it will hardly make up for lost revenue from China, Malaysia and Indonesia, where the film was banned due to its religious content. Japan, which is a mixture of Buddhism and the native Shinto beliefs, generally takes a relaxed approach to religion.

Climbing to Spring (Haru o Seotte), a high-altitude human drama directed by 74-year-old Daisaku Kimura, opened in third spot with (￥95 million) from 337 screens.

Further down the chart, X-Men: Days of Future Past dropped from second to fifth in its third week in theaters. Need for Speed dropped to ninth spot after bowing in seventh last weekend, while Pompeii fell to tenth after its modest opening in fifth last week.